oviso could get the vote of that State. The Whigs,
who had opposed the Mexican war, now reaped its benefits by nominating
one of its heroes to the Presidency, and Zachary Taylor of Louisiana
became at once a popular candidate. Millard Fillmore of New York was
named for vice president, and "Rough and Ready" clubs were soon
organized in every part of Georgia. The venerable William H. Crawford
headed the Whig electoral ticket in Georgia, while Toombs, Stephens, and
Thomas W. Thomas led the campaign.

The issue of the campaign in Georgia was the Clayton compromise which
the Georgia senators had sustained, but which Stephens and Toombs had
defeated in the House. This compromise proposed that all questions
concerning slavery in the governments of the ceded territory be referred
to the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Toombs declared that the
Mexican law prohibiting slavery was still valid and would so remain;
that Congress and not the courts must change this law.

The Clayton compromise, Mr. Toombs said, was only intended as "the
Euthanasia of States' Rights. When our rights are clear, security for
them should be free from all ambiguity. We ought never to surrender
territory, until it shall be wrested from us as we have wrested it from
Mexico. Such a surrender would degrade and demoralize our section and
disable us for effective resistance against future aggression. It is far
better that this new acquisition should be the grave of the republic
than of the rights and honor of the South--and, from present
indications, to this complexion it must come at last."

Mr. Toombs demanded that what was recognized by law as property in the
slaveholding States should be recognized in the Mexican territory. "This
boon," he pleaded, "may be worthless, but its surrender involves our
honor. We can permit no discrimination against our section or our
institutions in dividing out the common property of the republic. Their
rights are not to be abandoned, or bartered away in presidential
elections."

So Toombs and Stephens were central figures in this national campaign.
It was during this canvass that Mr. Stephens became embroiled with Judge
Francis H. Cone, a prominent lawyer of Georgia and a near neighbor. Mr.
Stephens heard that Judge Cone had denounced him as a traitor for moving
to table the Clayton compromise. Stephens had retorted sharply that if
Cone had said this he would slap his face. After some correspondence the
two men met